A WELL TRAVELED HEART

Cynthia M. Sheward

  • CHORES

    CHORES

    When the Winken Blinken days were gone,
    defiance became my middle name.
    Dad and I met only over floor tile and paint –
    chores well done.

    We’d visit the lumber yard, select
    pine to fashion Adirondack chairs
    to grace the deck, unaffected
    by wind and rain.

    Rising early, the bay quiet, we’d share coffee
    from a pot that sat – stacked silver orbs –
    on the counter – and discuss our day’s
    plans, make notes.

    I’m an ecstatic sander – a lover of latex.
    All my life – one gallon at a time
    I paint my way back
    to my father’s heart.

  • FOXCROSS FARM

    FOXCROSS FARM

    When I think of the farm, 
    it’s the stone bridge and country
    road curving by the low barn.
    It’s Tony’s tomatoes, white peacocks.

    When I think of the farm, I see pine
    trees, green pastures, the
    bramble roses by the creek
    sheep standing in the field.

    When I think of the farm,
    I watch women spinning wool
    the whir of wheels descant to
    soft voices and gentle laughter.

    When I think of the farm, I see
    Airedales, Romney sheep,
    a rabbit and Rhode Island Reds,
    a well-fed Peaceable Kingdom.

    I do not think of the ground
    we walked last night when
    one of their flock went missing
    fearing death had stalked a lamb.

    When I think of the farm,
    I don’t see Anthony striding the fields
    Julie peering into corner and cranny
    in tense, sweaty anxiety.

    Death’s but a hair’s breadth
    away each day. It makes
    sweet our brief walk through time
    I don’t think of that.

  • POET

    The permission givers are dead,
    their fingers fallen like dust
    from my wrists.

    Nothing’s left to fear – friends live here,
    some traveled early or late
    through death’s door, their
    praise and criticism heard no more.

    Only the work remains
    to claim before day’s end.
    I am who I’ve known
    myself to be.

  • WHAT CATS KNOW

    WHAT CATS KNOW

    The neighbor’s Siamese
    all smoke, beige fur, padded feet
    appears in the abandoned yard
    next door to torment my puppy.
    She cleans herself and watches.
    How does she know not to wander
    into the busy street out front
    or Interstate behind
    to be flattened by van or semi?

    What makes her sit instead
    and groom, blue-eyed Charybdis,
    hind leg lifted amid weed-shrouded lilacs
    while vehicles varoom past and
    exhaust wafts through the air
    stained with scent of fries and
    big Macs from across town?

    Dogs know none of this.

  • CROWS


    Black forms
    fly north-by-northeast
    over the transparent moon.
    First one, a few
    then a broken ribbon
    crosses the sky
    as the crows fly home
    to roost.
     
    Audubon does not say
    nor maps reveal
    which nook hides
    so many Corvids.
    They sway and weave  
    heading coastward
    over lagoons and draw bridges
    rivers and roads.
     
    I’ve wanted to befriend
    a crow for years
    although I know
    taming wild things
    is not an act of grace.
    But the presence of wildness
    is soul mending
    irreplaceable.
     
     

  • BEACH

    BEACH

    Glasses on an open book
        its pages ruffled by the wind.
    Spring air (as winter melts away)
        against a naked patch of skin.

    The warmth of sunlight on my back.
        The sight of seagulls as they fly.
    The scent of sand beneath a towel.
        The curl of waves under the arc of sky.

    Salt water when it’s clear and cool.
        Toweling hair after a swim.
     The beauty of the beach when fall is near.
        How skin when drying, gathers itself in.

    These images and more return to me
        when salt and sand and sea’s nearby.
    Sweet days lived long before I knew
        how life like summertime could fly.


  • LIKE ME

    LIKE ME

    Like me.
    That’s the drug – a draft of this nectar
    can own me into the next life for an accolade
    you barely recall.

    Like me.
    Quiet my fears with the smile and nod
    I awaited endlessly at war zone dinner tables, parentless
    performances and lonely surgeries.

    Like me
    and it’s ok not to have been born a son,
    to be funny, a tree climber and never a prom queen
    to get migraines.

    Like me
    and I could weep, run,
    dance, spread my arms to this fast warming world
    in joy, terror and love.

  • FIDDLEHEADS

    Each May I walked the ground along Bull Run
    seeking fiddleheads.
    Returning home with my bag of ferns,
    I’d blow the papery layer off,
    then steam them. Their perfume filled the house
    with a scent I dream of still.
    I’d arrange the stems and
    whorled tops on a painted plate
    and drizzle them with hollandaise.
    Sitting on the porch with fiddleheads and wine,
    I’d watch the sun set and
    celebrate surviving another Vermont winter.
    The feast made it impossible to believe
    the world less than
    perfect.

    Each May I return to that riverside
    to walk and pick and steam again
    those green ferns in my mind
    savor days feasting on found food
    before wine and wanting tangled life.

    It was a small New England town
    I taught English to farm kids.
    Summers I sold crafts to tourists from a one-room school
    with Gretchen Crookshank, 80, all gossip, elegance
    and jangling bracelets and the nervous
    mother-son pair from Center Street, whose handmade
    hats looked machine-made.
    I studied knitting with a Norwegian neighbor and
    spinning at the Hoffman’s farm.
    Barbara, the bus driver, struggled to get her rabbits
    to mate – tales of candlelight and music in the barn
    defied myths of rabbit reproduction.
    I made spending money as a night librarian.
    I had kind friends.
    My husband loved me.

    Each May I return to that riverside
    to select ferns
    and steam them once again
    to think on the turns
    that took me far from fiddleheads
    and the small town that held them.

    A town I left to wander
    from school to ski resort to Fortune 500 corporation –
    another marriage and a family
    South to Jersey then further still to
    Carolina mountains where high along the Blue Ridge
    we built a home with our own hands
    board by slow board – designing as we went our nest
    which, when it fell, almost toppled me as well.
    But I had a son to raise and
    clothes that needed washing
    dinners to cook, a dog to walk
    I learned that women hold the world together.
    I moved back to the rumble of Interstates and 18 wheelers
    where a red-tailed hawk glimpsed early
    could hold me the entire day.

    Each May I look northward
    dream of fiddleheads
    along Bull Run
    remember pale iris in the yard,
    where nightly trains
    run whistling by.

     

  • UNCLE

    He walks the woods no more
    this land whose every hill he knows
    geodes by the stream
    the trail where turkeys file at dusk.

    Right hand upon his dog,
    he sits beside the window to watch
    the squirrels she used to chase
    cache nuts against the coming dark.

    A doe, two fawns at clearing’s edge
    browse by the lick set out last fall.
    Their colors blend with leaves and brush
    that hide morels awaiting spring.

    His wife is ill. Her malaise named
    but without cure. His hips, once limber,
    grate now sharply bone on bone.
    He lets the dog out, sees her roam.

    When he whistles,
    she trots slowly home.

    Cynthia M. Sheward

  • LAST DANCE

    At a summer wedding we dance under a cobalt sky,
    a thing my husband rarely does.  I feel beautiful |
    in a cotton dress with flowers I’d stitched across the yoke.
    Weddings let us gaze into the holy
    from ground we struggle to hold
    despite moonlight and candle glow.

    We’d lived separately for months.
    We knew when vows were said,
    the work of marriage would begin
    with its crowded airports and unforgiving deadlines.
    Cats would die, pipes freeze and
    sex be one more demand in days overfilled.

    Fights might escalate – blame ignite their home,
    Chores lay undone as communication fails.
    Someone else’s caring might seem water on dry ground.
    We’ve no secrets from ourselves.
    Poor choices root in hearts like kudzu.
    Cracked, the egg of marriage resists mending.

    But this night their honeymoon is still ahead,
    cocooned by family and friends, their life sparkles with possibility.
    “You’ll always be my star,” Jim whispers as we waltz.
    He walks me down the driveway to my car.
    He holds the door for me and says 
    “I want a divorce. I’m going to marry Kathy.”